Kathy Korman Frey Bio

She awoke to siren-like ring of her phone on the bedside table. “3.00 am” glared through the darkness from the alarm clock. “This can’t be good,” she thought. While handling one personal crisis after another, how would she ever find time to grow her business? Her personal obligations were in a constant death match with her own self-confidence and goals.

This is a typical start to a Hot Mommas® Project case study, a new generation of a teachable story and virtual mentor for women and girls. Kathy Korman Frey, an award-winning entrepreneur, community leader, educator, and curriculum developer is the founder of the Hot Mommas® Project: The world’s largest collection of women’s case studies. The power of story is digitally delivered in this free, cutting edge, crowd-sourced online library driven largely by women in social media. The Hot Mommas® Project is the recipient of a Coleman Foundation Case Award and has been profiled by The Washington Post Magazine, NPR, and featured in Prentice Hall textbooks through which winning Hot Mommas Project cases are distributed globally each year.

The Hot Mommas® Project research is part of Frey’s work as adjuct Professor and Entrepreneur in Residence at the George Washington University School of Business, Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence. At GWSB, Frey teaches Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership which is the recipient of a National Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education award. To enable wider learning outside of the university community, Frey recently converted the Hot Mommas® Project data into cutting edge interactive workshops producing measurable increases in confidence for women and girls up to 200%. The workshops range from half-an-hour to three hours. A self-moderated version of the workshops is currently being detailed in a “how to” book for women on which Frey is authoring and intends for use by women and girls from bookclubs to boardrooms.

Prior to her current activities, Frey was Managing Director of Vision Forward, LLC, one of the nation’s earliest virtual work environments employing the original “Hot Mommas” consultants hailing from top businesses and consulting firms, and working for the firm part time, with flexible hours. The firm’s one and two-day planning bootcamps fit the consultants’ schedules, and accomodated the company’s clients who were senior executives flying in for a maximum of 48 hours. Clients included AARP, The US Department of Justice, Entrepreneur’s Organization, Chief Executive’s Organization, Visa, VHA, and The Federal Drug Administration.

Frey also served as the Chief Operating Officer for the National Council on the Aging Development Corporation where she worked with teams to raise $8 million dollars for a venture in the health and aging industry, as well as serving on the senior planning and strategy team for www.BenefitsCheckUp.org which today delivers a 200 to 1 ROI. Prior to NCOA, Frey served as an analyst and in management at Markowitz & McNaughton, Incorporated (later acquired by Citigate and partnered with The McLean Group) performing competitive and merger & acquisition analyses for Fortune 100 to 500 clients to advise the leaders of multinational corporations on strategic growth decisions.

Frey earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her B.A. in English from the University of Virginia where she received the Seven Society’s James Earle Sargeant award for community service. She is a Harvard Business School case author, a DC Twitter Elite, a contributor to Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference site, and dubbed one of “America’s Top Business Bloggers” by the HSM World Business Forum. She is also the creator of the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation’s free PowerPoint curriculum taught to approximately 40,000 junior high and high school students each year. Frey is a former board member of the Alzheimer’s Association, National Capital Area and a recipient of the Washington Business Journal’s 2010 Women Who Mean Business award. In June of 2011, Frey was named DC’s inaugural Woman of Distinction by the National Association of Women Business Owners. Frey DC She lives in DC with entrepreneur husband Josh Frey, their two children, Maxwell and Delilah, and dog Foxy. She is a regular keynote speaker on the topics of women’s leadership, mentorship, and work-life balance.

“Thank you so much for coming out and leading the program, it was fabulous! The group loved you!! I’ve heard nothing but good feedback. I’ve already had two women mention to me that they plan to write a to-don’t list! I also felt empowered after leaving the program. As a young working mom, you really touched on what I’m going through. Everyone wants to bring you back for other Women’s leadership and empowerment programs.”

Jennifer Scher

The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington

“Excellent…very helpful…A great way to break away from the surgical mindset. This was fantastic. Thanks!”

Attendees of…

Association of American Women’s Surgeons Conference

“You were a tremendous asset to our students and we really appreciated your time and energy! Staff and students have already talked about wanting to hire you for another speaking engagement.”

Sandie Taylor, Women’s Conference Organizer

Wake Forest MBA Program

“I would recommend @chiefhotmomma [Kathy Korman Frey] as an action-oriented keynote speaker for quality business conferences. Her#wgbiz talk was electric.”